Heatwaves Quietly Destroying Drug Potency, NAFDAC Warns
Rising temperatures across Nigeria are silently stripping common medicines of their healing power, exposing patients to treatment failures they may never trace back to the drugs themselves, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has warned.
The agency’s Director-General, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, said the climate crisis, marked by unprecedented heatwaves, has become a severe challenge to maintaining drug potency throughout the supply chain. She spoke on Thursday at the third anniversary of the Institute for Advanced Medical Research and Training at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, an event themed “Preserving Potency: Navigating Heat Stress in Medicine Distribution and Usage” and organised with NAFDAC.
Adeyeye, represented by NAFDAC’s Director of Laboratory Services (Drug), Inkem Ifudu, said the agency’s mandate “remains to safeguard public health by monitoring the distribution, use, importation, and exportation of medications,” making the protection of active pharmaceutical ingredients from environmental degradation “a front-burner issue.”
She described heat stress as a quiet destroyer of essential medications, leading to massive, unexpected treatment failures. Everyday antibiotics such as amoxicillin capsules, children’s suspensions and the combined amoxicillin-clavulanate, she noted, are highly sensitive to thermal fluctuations and degrade swiftly without rigorous climate controls.
The danger sharpens for cold-chain items. “The threat becomes even more catastrophic for life-saving cold-chain items like oxytocin, a vital hormone routinely administered to pregnant women during delivery,” she said, explaining that severe heat can completely deactivate the biologically active elements, leaving doctors to unknowingly administer redundant treatments.
To check the problem, Adeyeye said NAFDAC has deployed seven specialised laboratories nationwide for routine post-market surveillance. “This regulatory dragnet involves pulling drug samples randomly from various commercial tiers to analyze whether they still retain the chemical specifications outlined by their original manufacturers,” she said, adding that the agency had pursued litigation, impounded compromised stock from open drug markets, and levied heavy sanctions on defaulting distributors.
She urged Nigerians to shun roadside drug hawkers and uncertified open-market vendors whose inventories are routinely “baked under the sun,” and to buy only from certified, temperature-regulated pharmacies while following home preservation guidelines on internal leaflets.
The Oyo State Chairman of the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria, Adebayo Ogundamosi, outlined the financial strain on operators. Because local room temperatures frequently surge past the 25-degree Celsius threshold required for drug stability, he said, “pharmacists are forced to function as independent local governments, generating their own electricity, sourcing water, and heavily investing in extensive air conditioning systems.” He said the ACPN was shifting toward solar partnerships and soft loans to acquire WHO-approved solar fridges so that “the last mile of drug delivery does not become a graveyard for medicine potency.”
IAMRAT Director, Prof IkeOluwapo Ajayi, said compromised medication “becomes an ineffective substance or potentially a poison,” creating “a dangerous illusion of healing while allowing illnesses to progress unchecked.” She said the institute would continue using monthly seminars to share clinical findings with practitioners and manufacturers.